Preparing driveway for gravel

[Steve]

When I bought this house, a driveway had been formed at the back of the back garden. The house is on a corner, so the car is driven in from the side. The back wall of the garden forms the side of the drive.

Now, the driveway had previously been formed on the cheap. Two slab "tracks" formed the hard standing. With gravel between. The wall that was where the drive opening is was simply lowered to ground level, and a wooden threshold screwed on top.

I tried to park my car here, but this wooden threshold created a step. The combination of this, and the steep V of the road camber and the pavement, meant I couldnt get my car onto the drive - the bumper scraped the road. The drive also slopes upwards.

The boundary wall at the side of the drive is being replaced with a fence. The ground at the other side of the wall is level! So I am going to level the drive to match while the wall is down, and dig down 4 inches to get enough depth for gravel. I'm getting an 8 ton skip - hope this is enough for the wall and the soil!

Now, for the threshold of the gate, I will dig down 2 courses of brick and replace them with concrete held in with permenent wood shuttering. This will give a good fixing for the middle bolt I think. I will do this while the gate men are there fixing their posts in so all the concrete is "linked" as it were.

Any tips for this? I know there is such a thing as rebar but where do I obtain such a product and is it appropriate here? Bearing in mind this is going to be driven over - an 8 inch by 8 inch length of concrete across a drive, over brick wall foundations.

The rest of the driveway will be gravel with landscape fabric underneath, for cost reasons. Any recommendations to ensure the gravel stays weed free? The previous gravel had been layed over a polyethene sheet!

 

[Blagard]

I have to say I think even your new drive is being built on the cheap. But in the end it is your decision.

The Geotextile will keep the gravel from being pushed into the ground you excavate to. What it will not do is prevent the ground under the gravel from rutting. To stop that you need a good sub-base like hardcore.

The concrete threshold you describe may be OK. As I understand it you are using the remainder of the wall and its foundation to support it. Chucking in some reinforcement bar might help or not, depending on where you place it. You can get some short lengths at great expense from B & Q but it will probably be a bit on the light side. Two courses of brick down would normally be around 6" so I don't understand where your 8" comes from. Your "Permanent" wood shutter will only be permanent until it rots away. For a lot of information on doing the drive properly look here or for your convenience scroll down the page on this link -> gravel Bascially dig deeper use hardcore and less gravel, geotextile under gravel is good